Be A Rocker

My Mom TOLD me what to do a great deal of the time.
She rarely gave ADVICE.
There is a difference.  What I am told, I rarely do.
What I am advised, I take under, well... advisement.
When I was a new Mom, my mother was an amazing and proud Grandma.
About day three of motherhood, she offered me the best advice I have ever been given.
She said there are a few basic rules to being a Mom, and if I followed them, everything else would be cake.
1.  If the baby cries, something is wrong.   She is hungry, has a wet diaper, or is over stimulated or overtired.
2.  Be a rocker.  Sit in that rocking chair and rock that baby.  When she is grouchy, when she is sick, when you are grouchy, when you are sick.  It is the time of your life you will never regret spending doing nothing else but rocking that baby.  Be a rocker.
To this day, I stand by these two mantras, and I share this advice with all new Moms (and Dads) that I meet.  I went out and bought Step Daughter, Cass and her fiance, Kyle, a glider rocker for their baby Kreighton because I simply could not imagine NOT rocking That Baby.

Madi once had a physical therapist who was VERY upset about the predominance of rocking chairs in my house.  There was one in the living room; one in the play room; one in the nursery; one in my bedroom.
She TOLD me that it had been proven that babies who were rocked were clingy and co-dependent as children and teens.
Wish she had been there when Madi told me, as she headed off to Kindergarten on the bus, that I was NOT allowed to follow her to school because she was NOT a baby.
At that moment, I was happier than ever that I had rocked my baby.

Mom is gone now.  The rockers are gone, too.  I have one in the Croghan house attic, waiting for the day that Madi can Be A Rocker.  I hope I can pick a night when the moon is bright and the stars hang like icing in the sky to share her grandma's advice.  I hope that she takes it.

Rock on...